The announcement that Deputy Minister Marlène Schiappa will be the protagonist of the next issue of Playboy magazine causes much discussion in France, where she appears in a cover photo and in a very long interview – with other images – on the inside pages in which she defends women’s freedom.
“With all due respect to the retrogrades,” she writes on Twitter, claiming her choice. The announcement came from Le Parisien but to browse through the issue in question of Playboy we will have to wait for its release on newsstands on 8 April.
Schiappa, who is Secretary of State for the Social and Solidarity Economy and who was Minister for Equal Opportunities in Emmanuel Macron’s first term, appears in a preview that circulates widely on social media, only with his face and shoulders uncovered in the photo that will be on the cover. Where, however, they ensure in the entourage of the interested party, she is immortalized “in a long white dress”.
According to a source of the magazine, in at least one of the four photos accompanying the 12-page interview, Schiappa would appear in a «sexy pose and wrapped in a French flag».
According to the same source, Marlène Schiappa, 40, agreed to give Playboy an interview “which focuses essentially on women’s freedom but also on feminism, politics and literature”. Twelve pages in which she talks about violence against women and within families, solidarity economy, ecology and global warming: «Marlène Schiappa – her entourage still say – is the only minister able to answer the questions of a newspaper like Playboy and for this reason she is the first female politician to star on its cover».
In the government, however, subjected to the exceptional tension of recent months due to the social protest against the pension reform, this whole affair does not appear to everyone’s liking: many of Schiappa’s colleagues would consider the initiative “inadmissible”, according to Le Parisien. Even if he didn’t arouse particular amazement, given the often uncontrollable and in any case very media-oriented nature of the minister who is always very close to Macron.
Just a month ago, Schiappa had in fact made headlines by formalizing – to avoid conflicts of interest – his relationship with Matthias Savignac, president of Mgen, the health insurance company that covers the health risks of National Education employees. According to the rules, some “dossiers” have since been stolen from Marlène Schiappa at the risk of arousing suspicion.
At the end of 2021, a video immortalizing her with popular Instagram influencers at the Interior Ministry had raised a fuss. As well as her erotic novels, some written under a pseudonym. According to one of her collaborators – quoted by France Info – “Macron will send her away, Playboy will not like him”.
But she defends her initiative on social media: “The defense of women’s right to dispose of their bodies is everywhere and always”, even on Playboy. “In France, women are free. With all due respect to the retrogrades and the hypocrites».